Ornithology of St. Kilda. 71 



contained a list of the birds of St. Kilda. In 1832 Mr. 

 Atkinson published (Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne) an account of his visit to St. Kilda^ made during the 

 previous year. In 1840 John Macgillivray^ a son of the 

 great naturalist^ William Macgillivray, who^ however, 

 refers to him as " a friend of mine "" in his article on the 

 PuflSn, and gives the date of his visit to St. Kilda as 1839 ! 

 (Hist. Brit. B. v. p. 369)_, after a most perilous voyage, 

 reached St. Kilda (staying there four days), and published 

 an account of its bird-life in the ' Edinburgh New Philo- 

 sophical Journal' (1812, p. 47); whilst in 1812 James 

 Wilson published an account of its ornithology in his 

 * Voyage round the Coasts of Scotland and the Isles.'' 

 In 1848 Sir William Milner published in the ' Zoologist ' 

 a very complete account of the birds of this remote 

 corner of the British Islands ; and in 18G9 the pages of 

 'The Ibis'' were enriched with a graphic account of St. 

 Kilda bird-life from the pen of Captain Elwes. In 187G 

 Sands (who spent seven weeks in the islands in 1875 and 

 eight months in 1876-77) published his '' Out of the World, 

 or Life in St. Kilda,' containing an account of its ornitho- 

 logy ; whilst in the following year Seton issued his ' St. Kilda, 

 past and present,' containing a chapter devoted to the birds. 

 As, however, Seton's experience of St. Kilda only extended 

 over a few hours, during the stay of a pleasure-steamer, his 

 information was compiled from contemporary writers. In 

 the summer of 1883 Mr. Barrington paid a visit to these 

 islands ; but no account of his journey seems to have been 

 published ; and his researches were more of a botanical than 

 an ornithological nature. 



St. Kilda has always possessed a charm for me ; to explore 

 its rocky shores has been a long-cherished hope ; but the 

 only way to do it with any degree of thoroughness was to 

 spend a week or so there. Through the kindness of my 

 friend Mr. J. T. Mackenzie, of Dunvegan, in Skye, the pre- 

 sent factor of St. Kilda, I was enabled last summer to visit the 

 island in his smack, and to stay there for nearly a fortnight. 

 Mr. Mackenzie's vessel pays two visits to St. Kilda every 



